


easy to resemble, hard to learn the workings of

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Masturbation, One Shot, Post-Episode: s01e02 ...Had Sex With Paxton Hall-Yoshida, This has a slight d/b slant, and it's mostly about devi herself, because there's also plenty of d/p content, but i'm not tagging ships, finally. beware the author's overshare in the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: “I just gotta do some reading, you know? Be more prepared.”“Some reading,” Paxton repeats back, bemused. “Like, in a textbook?”“I don’t know,” Devi says. “But Wikipedia definitely isn’t gonna cut it.”
Comments: 27
Kudos: 51





	easy to resemble, hard to learn the workings of

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to Bethany.
> 
> Okay, listen. When I was in high school, I found myself in a FWB arrangement. The dude was a lowkey douchebag, but he gave me one piece of advice I never forgot: the more you masturbate, the more doing stuff with other people feels good. So masturbate.  
> And he was definitely offering me this advice in part to get out of having to provide my orgasms. But that part hardly matters to me because his presence in my life led me toward a healthier relationship with sex and with my body.
> 
> Since this show is set in high school and since it's very open about teen girls being horny, I feel like they've (so far) missed the opportunity to have this conversation. So, I don't know what young gal needs to hear this, but...masturbation is good. If you want to have a healthy sex life, start by building one with yourself.
> 
> Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

“If we’re cool, should we meet in your garage tomorrow?”

Paxton looks Devi up and down in that way that makes her throat feel like it has its own heartbeat.

“We could give it another shot, I guess.”

Her first instinct is to squeal, but thankfully—maybe the gods are taking her first-day-of-school prayers seriously, after all—she manages a totally chill nod instead. “Cool. I’ll, uh, see you there after school lets out?”

Paxton gives her a totally chill nod of his own. “See you then.”

###

“You look nice today,” Fabiola says when they meet at the vending machines the next morning.

Devi grins. “I’m seeing Paxton later.”

“Look at you go,” Eleanor says, waggling her eyebrows. “Already a voracious seductress.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” Devi says, starting off for class.

“Why not?” Eleanor asks as she and Fabiola fall into step behind Devi. “I’m not yet having sexual adventures of my own, so I’ve gotta romanticize yours.”

“Okay, well, maybe romanticize them in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a tramp in a grocery-store romance novel about vampires.”

Eleanor pouts. “You spoil my fun.”

“I mean, Devi has a point though,” Fabiola says.

“Thank you,” Devi says, coming to a stop out in the hall.

“If anything, she’d be the vampire.”

“Okay,” Devi says, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

Fabiola shrugs, unbothered. “Lady vampires are hot—vampires in general! Totally sexy!”

After an awkward beat, Devi says, “I’m just gonna say thank you and move on.”

“Please do.”

###

Paxton’s sitting on the steps of the porch when Devi approaches his house, and she feels her stomach clench. With excitement, obviously.

“Hey,” he says, lifting his chin in greeting.

“‘Sup,” Devi says back and, oh god, she wishes her hands would stop sweating. The lacy overlay on her top makes her feel like one of those waifish girls that always seem to be hanging out in wheat fields, but it’s not really absorbent. If she rubs her palms on her shorts, will it leave a visible sweat stain? 

“I’ve only got a couple hours before I have to be back at the school,” Paxton says, standing. “Swim practice.”

“Let’s get to it, then!” Devi says, punching him in the arm.

He grins, amused. And that’s good right? Amusing is good.

Or it means he’s only hanging out with her because she keeps offering herself up as his own personal freak show.

Oh god.

“Third time’s the charm,” she says, trying to reassure herself.

Paxton holds the door open for her. “Huh?”

“What?”

“You were saying something?”

Devi darts inside, shaking her head. “No I wasn’t.”

Paxton doesn’t push, and she lets out a relieved breath.

She can do this. Nay, she _has_ to do this. Her being a pitiable, lying psycho hangs in the balance.

A jolt of motivating adrenaline pumps out from her heart and down into her fingertips, so as soon as Paxton closes the door behind him and turns to face her, she reaches for his belt.

He raises his eyebrows—surprised? Pleased? She really wishes he’d talk more; he’s so hard to read—and looks down, watching as she fumbles with the buckle.

“We could go slower than this, you know,” he offers when her hands shake so hard, the little prong knocks noisily against the blocky metal frame. “It’s not gonna take more than an hour, anyway.”

“Duh,” she says. “I know that.”

God, she’s pathetic and stupid and so, so _transparent_.

But Paxton’s still grinning at her, so maybe he likes that sort of thing.

“Here,” he says, stepping around her to flop down on the couch. “Come over here.”

For a second, she considers sitting in his lap, but in that same second she gets a vision of accidentally knocking his teeth out with her thick freaking skull, so she settles beside him instead.

“Can I…?” He asks, reaching for her.

And Devi’s not sure what he’s looking to do, but she nods anyway because, well, it’s Paxton Hall-Yoshida. The answer is obviously yes.

“Here,” he says, and then he cups her cheek in his palm and pulls her toward him.

She’s so focused on the fact that she’s making out—and with Paxton Hall-Yoshida, no less—that it takes her more than a beat to realize he’s guided her hand to his lap. And it takes her several beats after that to realize what exactly that means. She’s touching his—!

“Whoa,” Paxton says, pulling away from her with a wince. “Try to ease up on the teeth a little. You just bit my tongue.”

“In a sexy way?” she asks, watching his face because she definitely cannot be looking anywhere else right now.

“Not quite,” he says, dragging his thumb along the underside of her chin and guiding her back toward him. “Sexy biting is a little more like…”

He kisses her once. Twice. Bites down gently on her lower lip.

She draws in a sharp breath of surprise, and she can feel him smile for just a moment. Then he’s sucking at her lip and, holy shit, his mouth is so warm and he tastes like wading into the ocean and she might die, right here.

Her fingers—apparently totally into that idea—flex on his crotch. And a second later, she feels…

“You know what?” Devi says, and she sways a little. How’d she get to her feet so quickly? “I just. I have to study.”

Paxton blinks up at her. “Study?”

“Yeah,” she says. “For, um—” And, oh god someone kill her, she actually points to his lap.

He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

“I just gotta do some reading, you know? Be more prepared.”

“Some reading,” he repeats back, bemused. “Like, in a textbook?”

“I don’t know,” Devi says. “But Wikipedia definitely isn’t gonna cut it.”

She regrets those words as soon as they’re out of her mouth. They’re a bit too revealing.

Her vampire self would be way coyer than this. She’d eat Paxton Hall-Yoshida whole.

Devi’s eyes fixate on Paxton’s thighs for a long moment.

“I—” He starts to say something, but she’s fairly certain she doesn’t want to hear whatever it is.

So she does the first sensible thing she’s ever done in this garage: she bolts without another word.

###

Devi’s not sure when, exactly, she makes the decision to go to Ben Gross. Sometime after she deletes a text she can’t send to Eleanor and Fabiola, to be sure. Definitely before her better sense catches up with her.

For all the bragging he does to her about his home and dad and everything, she’s never actually been to his house. She gawks all the way up to the front door.

“Holy mansion, Batman,” she says when she rings the bell and the sound seems to reverberate for ages.

A woman with red hair and a stained apron answers the door. “Can I help you?”

“Um,” Devi says. “Is Ben home?”

The woman steps aside to reveal a white hallway that looks like it belongs in a copy of _Architectural Digest_ and, beyond that, Ben sitting at the kitchen counter, textbook open at his elbow.

“My sweet boy, you have a guest,” the woman says as Devi takes a tentative step inside the house.

Ben swivels around and then freezes for a full eight seconds. Forgetting why she’s there and how much of a pathetic loser she is, Devi smiles.

_Gotcha_ , she thinks.

He blinks rapidly, and she enjoys a couple more moments of having caught him totally off guard before he finds his voice again.

“Are you lost, David?” At least he sounds more incredulous than angry.

She jerks up her chin. “No.”

“Can I make you a snack?” the woman asks. “Or get you something to drink?”

She’s about to decline the offer, but she did just walk here all the way from Paxton’s house. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

“Of course.”

Ben hops off his stool and takes a couple steps toward her before stopping and cocking his head. “What are you doing here?”

The woman ruffles his hair as she passes him. “You can be a better host than this, yes?”

Color rises in Ben’s cheeks. “Sure thing, Patty.”

Devi’s smile comes back bigger than before.

_Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha_.

###

After she’s had some water, Ben drags her away from Patty’s watchful eyes.

“Seriously,” he says, turning and walking backwards down a hallway. “Why are you here?”

“Hey,” Devi says, pushing through a door at random. “What’s in here?” There’s a huge desk in the center of the space and bookshelves lining most of the walls. “Whoa.”

Ben hisses at her from the doorway. “Get out of here.”

“Why?” she asks, leaning in to get a closer look at some spines. They’re mostly law books, she realizes. “Is this place booby-trapped? It looks like the kind of room that would be booby-trapped.”

“It’s my dad’s study,” he says, like admitting as much is akin to permanently ceding the top spot in the class to her.

She hums, trailing her fingers along the edges of the shelves at her eye level as she wanders further inside. She can feel his eyes on her, making the expanse of her back prickle, but she doesn’t turn around to acknowledge him.

He lets her stall for a moment longer until she reaches out to fiddle with a bust.

“Don’t touch that,” he says, at her side suddenly, and catches her wrist. “It’s my great-grandpa.”

“Yeah, and I bet he’s hiding a secret room behind a revolving bookshelf.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Maybe if we were animated and had a Great Dane sidekick.”

“Good one,” Devi says, and finds she kind of means it.

“What are you doing here?” he asks again.

She twists her wrist out of his grasp and puts a couple of paces’ distance back between them. “What? A girl can’t randomly call upon her nemesis just for kicks?”

He studies her with an unreadable look on his face. “Did…are you okay?”

The question makes Devi feel too hot. Like cracked ceramic left in the oven for too long—like something about to shatter.

“Fuck you, Gross.”

His nostrils flare. “You know what? Fine. Don’t tell me why you’re here. It’s not like I care anyway.”

“Good.”

“Great!” He turns on his heel. “Patty’s shift ends in an hour. If you’re not gone the minute after she is, I’ll call the cops on you for trespassing.”

She scoffs. “What are you going to tell them? ‘This person I let have free rein of my house is bothering me now, actually.’ I bet they’ll take you super seriously.”

“Guess we’ll find out in sixty-one minutes,” he says, not even pausing when he gets to the doorway.

Devi clenches her jaw tight. She’s here because she doesn’t have any other options, and whose fault is that?

She’s untrustworthy and a terrible friend and she’s never, ever gonna have sex.

_Ugh._

“Does Shira watch porn?”

The question hangs in the empty room and, for a moment, Devi wonders if Ben had made it far enough away to be out of earshot.

On the heels of that thought, though, he steps back into the room and pulls the door shut.

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes fixed several inches above the top of her head. “ _What?_ ”

Devi swallows harshly. “I asked, you know… Does your girlfriend watch porn?”

“Right. Sure.” Ben nods so quick and hard he looks like a bobble-head. “Follow-up question: _what?_ ”

“Come on, Gross,” Devi says, collapsing into a leather arm chair. It smells like cigar smoke. “Don’t be weird.”

“Oh, _I’m_ the one being weird right now?” His voice is squeaky-high, and it would be funny if she weren’t ten seconds away from dying of embarrassment.

“Well, you’re not being normal,” she grumbles.

“Okay,” he says, and then drags his hand over his face. “Okay. Humor me for a second. I want to make sure I have things straight.”

Resigning herself to the fact that he’s not going to let her extract information without explaining herself, she gestures for him to go on.

“You came over to my house, unannounced and in the middle of the afternoon, because you wanted to know if Shira watches, erm.” He coughs. “Adult content.”

“I mean, it was supposed to be more of a jumping off point,” Devi says, picking at a hangnail. “But yeah.”

“Jumping off?” He’s squeaking again. “To _where_?”

She sighs. “I mean, you could find out by answering…?”

He lets out a blustering sigh, stumbling further into the room and all the way over to his dad’s desk seemingly without meaning to. After a moment of staring at her, he pulls out the chair and drops into it. “You’d, um…” He pauses, clears his throat. “You’d have to ask Shira.”

Devi kicks out her leg, frowning. “You guys have never, I don’t know. You don’t talk about it?”

“I still don’t understand why _we’re_ talking about it,” he says.

Devi huffs. “I’ve never…”

Ben raises his eyebrows when she doesn’t finish. “Watched porn?”

“No!” Devi says. “Well, I mean, yes, that’s also true. But I meant more…” She trails off again, wincing. Of course she hasn’t done it. She can’t even say it—can’t even think it—without feeling itchy and having-a-naked-in-public-nightmare exposed.

He tries again to fill in the blank. “Had sex?”

She lets out a strangled noise of frustration and grips the arms of the chair so hard, she wouldn’t be surprised to find half-moon marks permanently embedded in the leather. “Also true.”

“But not what you mean,” he says, brow furrowing.

“No.”

“So, what do you—?”

“Come on, dude,” she says, cutting him off. “Why does anyone watch porn?”

It still takes him a second, but he catches up. “Oh.”

She averts her gaze, then. It feels too weird to be looking at him right now. “Yeah.”

“You’ve never—”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…weird.”

Her eyes snap back up from cataloguing the order of stripes on the area rug beneath the chair. “Hey!”

He at least has the decency to look abashed. “I just mean, you’re not getting action from anyone else, right? Might as well… Oh, god. I can’t even finish that sentence.”

“Please don’t,” she says forcefully.

“Cool.” He stands. “So we’re done here, right?”

“It’s just so much easier for guys,” Devi says, and she feels a little badly for how accusatory it comes out but, well. It’s not fair.

Ben drops back into his seat, nostrils flared. “How do you figure?”

“I mean, it’s just a quick—” she makes a crude gesture “—and done. Right?”

He tilts his head, studying her. “What exactly are you looking for from me?”

“Ew, Gross,” Devi says, pulling her legs up onto the edge of the chair and hugging her knees tight. “I don’t want, like, a demonstration or something.”

“I never said you did!” He’s tomato red from his hairline down to the base of his neck.

“Okay, well. Good.”

“But you’re obviously fishing for _something_ ,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “And I’m assuming the sooner I get it to you, the sooner we can put an end to whatever the hell is happening here.”

She shrugs, conceding this.

“So, what is it?” he asks.

“Fab, El, and I tried googling how sex works,” she admits after an excruciating moment.

“That doesn’t answer—”

“Shut up,” she says. “I’m getting there!”

He holds up his hands in surrender.

“It’s just super different in the moment, and I don’t want to be weird and ask for, like, a play-by-play while it’s happening because that’s too much to focus on at once anyway, but I still want to be able to make it good and what if I can’t make it good for someone else because I’ve never even made it good for me? Like—” But she runs out of breath there, and has to suck in a gasp of air before swallowing it down with the rest of her too-revealing rant.

Ben blinks a couple times, his eyes once again fixed somewhere above the top of her head. “I think…” he swallows hard. “I think that logic tracks, probably.”

She feels her eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“So…porn,” she says, and then bangs her forehead against her knees a couple times because holy shit. She is not smooth. Not at all.

“It’s not a prerequisite for masturbation, David.”

Devi closes her eyes and continues to knock her head against her knees, but a giggle escapes her.

“Well, it’s not!”

“You just said masturbation.”

“Yeah, well, so have you!”

She lifts her head, another giggle popping out past her pursed lips.

Ben laughs, too. A breathy I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening kind of huff.

And that’s almost the weirdest part about this whole afternoon—sitting here laughing with Ben Gross.

_Almost_.

“I’m still not really sure where to start,” she says, mostly to her thighs.

“I still don’t—” he breaks off. “Are you looking for pointers?”

“Why?” she asks, looking up at him. “Do you have some?”

The redness that’d been fading blooms back to life on his cheeks and neck. “It’s not calculus, Devi. You just do what feels nice until it feels really nice.”

She feels suddenly hot herself, and she can’t tell if it’s a sympathetic reaction to seeing him so flushed or if it’s a reaction to her name or if it’s something else entirely. But whatever it is, she feels the sudden urge to yell at the top of her lungs.

“Yeah,” she says, and her voice sounds weirdly hoarse in her own ears. “Okay. Whatever feels nice.”

She gets to her feet then, and it’s absurd how wobbly she feels.

Ben stands, too, and walks ahead of her for the door.

“Hey,” she says, touching his shoulder before he can pull it open.

He twitches under her fingers and shoots a wide-eyed, questioning glance back at her.

“Can you forget this conversation ever happened?”

He scoffs. “Like I’d want to remember I know anything about your sex life—or lack thereof.”

She shoves at him. “Get it out of your system now, Gross. I’m about to lose it and make you eat those words.”

“Can you please get out of my house now?” he asks, swinging open the door with a flourish. “I need to start repressing.”

She flips him the bird as she shuffles out of the study.

###

Devi puts the conversation out of her head until she’s in bed that night and the house is quiet around her, but thinking about it immediately makes her heart start to pound hard in her chest.

She can do this. It’s not calculus. It’s whatever feels nice.

She sets her hand low on her belly, slips her fingers under the band of her pajama shorts… She can do this.

The house lets out a low groan, then, and it’s probably just settling, but Devi feels her pulse spike with panic. She snatches her hand back, pressing it against her chest instead and counting her heartbeats.

After they’ve slowed from fight-or-flight down to oh-god-I-think-this-is-happening, she throws back the covers and tiptoes over to her backpack.

Earbuds in hand, she slides back into bed. It takes her a second to pick an album—something worth being associated with her first orgasm, _fingers crossed_ —but once the music is playing low in her ear, she sets her hand back where it was, not hesitating this time to push her fingers into her shorts.

For a while, she lays there, eyes closed and almost more focused on the lyrics of the song, combing her hand through the coarse hair. She tugs at it, twirls it around her fingers, smooths it down…again and again until it feels less like braiding a crown out of grass just for something to do with her hands and more like tending to the embers of a soon-to-be fire.

She shifts, drawing up her knees under the covers and then letting them fall open.

_Don’t think about it too hard_ , she tells herself, and then lets her hand drift a little lower. Her skin is soft and kinda hot-clammy and if she just keeps smoothing her fingers down and down and down the same path that’s enough, right? She does feel kinda quivery.

But what if that’s more anticipation than anything she’s actually doing right? She wishes she felt surer…

Bold. She needs to be bold. Who’s she gonna embarrass if things go wrong, anyway? It’s just her here.

She brushes her fingers against her clit.

_Oh_. Now, _that_ feels nice.

She does it again.

And again.

She starts to feel all-over clammy, the more she strokes at herself. And tense, too. Like she’s been holding all her muscles rigid for hours, poised to start a race that has no finish line in sight.

Her earbuds go quiet, then, and Devi whimpers, frustrated. But she doesn’t think she can pause what she’s doing to put something else on. What if she loses momentum and has to start over?

But god, it’s so quiet in her head now.

_Paxton_ , she tells herself, pressing down hard enough that the nail of her pointer finger bites into the sensitive skin and makes her twitch. _Think about Paxton_.

Kissing Paxton earlier. Paxton without a shirt. Paxton dripping with water and rubbing a towel over his hair.

She whines, pushing her hips up into her hand.

_Come on, come on, come on_ , she thinks. _What else you go_ t?

For some reason, her mind offers up Ben. She can actually hear his voice— _do what feels nice until it feels really nice_ —can imagine what it’d sound like if he’d said it right in her ear.

Ben touching himself. Because it was obvious that he’d done it before. Ben, in his own bed right now, thinking about the possibility of her touching herself…

“Oh, god,” she says, but she doesn’t have time to feel too annoyed because suddenly she’s tripping over that finish line, clammy-hot like she’s just been removed from the fire, but her body hasn’t gotten the memo that it can stop burning.

She lets herself go boneless and empty for a second, hand still resting between her legs and a sleepy smile on her face.

She did it. And it was so much better than winning a debate tournament or finally memorizing the whole Periodic Table.

She’s so proud of herself, she decides she doesn’t need to linger on the hows or the whys.

She did it. That’s all that matters.

###

And Devi’s fully committed to seeing the whole no-lingering plan through. That is, until she arrives at Mr. Shaprio’s class the next day to find that Ben’s one of the only other people in the room.

She pauses, her heart in her throat.

But no. This is not a big deal. Errant, horny thoughts don’t have to mean anything, after all. If she’s learned anything since hitting puberty, it’s that she has very little control over herself when she’s thinking about sex.

To prove how little it all means, she holds her head up high and marches up from the back of the classroom right to Paxton’s usual seat—the one across from Ben.

He blinks curiously at her for a moment before saying, “Hi.”

“Hello,” she says back, dropping into the seat. After unloading her notebook, she slings her bag around the back of the chair, catching his expression as she rights herself in the seat again. “Stop that,” she says.

He blinks. “What?”

“Looking at me like you’re trying to figure out if I successfully…you know.”

He blushes, ducking his head. “Sorry.”

A moment later, though, she feels his eyes on her again. 

“You know, the best apology is changed behavior,” she says without looking over at him.

He makes this noise—some intriguing hybrid of a whimper and a scoff—and Devi feels it in the pit of her stomach.

_Uh-oh_.

Before she can fully start to panic and move back a chair, Fabiola and Eleanor come into the room.

Eleanor catches her eye, waggling her eyebrows. For a disorienting moment, Devi wonders how she could possibly know that Ben Gross just made her stomach pitch, but then Paxton breezes into the room behind her friends, and Devi relaxes. Eleanor has no idea.

He shoots Devi a curious look but doesn’t hesitate sliding into the seat behind her.

“So,” he says, leaning into her and whispering in her ear. “How did studying go last night?”

It’s probably a little weird that Devi wants to write a love letter to the goosebumps she feels race up the back of her neck, but what hasn’t been weird about the last twenty-four hours?

_Remember this for later_ , she tells herself sternly.

And with that reminder, Devi’s eyes dart over to Ben.

“Um,” she says, answering Paxton but unable to tear her eyes away from Ben. “Successful.”

Ben watches her back, eyes shimmering like he knows exactly what that means.

Oh, jeez. What has she done?

“Cool,” Paxton says. “Ready to put it to use?”

She’s still watching Ben, so she can see the exact moment when the implications of the invitation catch up with him. His lips part and his eyes seem to darken and—she has to look away then, twisting in her seat so she can face Paxton.

“I think,” she says hesitantly, unable to believe the words about to come out of her mouth, “that I need another day of cramming, actually.”

He shrugs, totally unbothered. “Sure. You do you.”

She swivels back to face the front of the room so no one will be able to hear the private joke she makes.

“That’s the idea.”


End file.
